Swimmer's Daily

  • Karlyn Pipes-Neilsen of Aquatic Edge was recently voted one of the Top Ten Masters Swimmers of All-Time by Swimming World Magazine and currently holds masters world records in both the pool and open water. She lives in Kona, Hawaii but travels the globe teaching swimmers and triathletes how to swim faster at her swim technique clinics and camps. Also, because she lives where the water is warm amongst outrig boats and what looks like runaway aquarium fishes, she is able to produce way more beautiful videos than us poor northerners. Sigh.

  • So how often does this happen? – Russia’s Stanislav Donets and Arkady Vyatchanin on the Istanbul 2009 LEN European Short Course Championships podium, after both having set a new world record of 48.97, bettering Vyatchanin’s 49.17 from the semis the day before. Donets won gold in all three backstroke events, back then, and bettered the world record again the year after at the Dubai 2010 World Championships (25m), to the current 48.95. Spain’s Aschwin Wildeboer Faber finished 3rd in 49.05, also under the 49.17 from the semis the day before.

    Vyatchanin and Donets double world record at Istanbul 2009

  • Some youngsters from Suðuroyar Svimjifelag in Vágur, Faroe Islands strutting their stuff. I don’t know how ‘perfect’ their form is at times, but they’ve sure got the energy!

    That last Berns vs SuSvim face-off thing is an internal joke, I think, between the director here Jón Bjarnason (head coach of SuSvim) and Berns head coach René Thomsen, the guy who helps them with for instance the website paljoensen.com)

  • Authorities are baffled as to who – or what – could have removed the bronze statue of St Francis of Paola, which stands 7.2 ft (2.2 m) high and was securely embedded in concrete 95 ft (29 m) beneath the surface of the sea. One unexpected upside from the disappearance is that when investigating the site, a group of local divers chanced upon the wreck of a 49 ft-long ship, which is thought to be hundreds of years old.

    Read The Telegraph.

    (That genius photo off sbirciapaola.wordpress.com)

  • Nancy Black, a marine biologist who runs whale-watching tours in Monterey Bay, California has been accused of violating laws that protect marine mammals. The four-count indictment accuses her of twice feeding killer whales, of misleading investigators by editing video footage of the incident and lying, and of violating a regulation that requires whale-watching boats to stay at least 100 yards away from the whales. If Black is found guilty of charges brought against her, she could receive a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and half a million dollars in fines. Read Digital Journal.

    Killer Whales, Galápagos Islands

    Image courtesy of Dave Govoni, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

  • A former Gerber Boy Scout Camp director was just sentenced to 95 years in federal prison for filming young boys dressing in a YMCA locker room and for owning a a massive collection of child porn. Scott Allan Herrick, 40, of Twin Lakes, Michigan, surreptitiously videotaped boys as they were dressing in the boys’ locker room in the YMCA in Muskegon, Mich., where Herrick was a swim instructor. He also kept a massive collection of 100,000 images of child pornography with him at the Gerber Boy Scouts Camp in Twin Lakes. He was convicted at trial of three counts of attempting to produce child pornography. And pleaded guilty to two counts of distributing and one count of possessing child pornography. Read examiner.com

  • No matching caps and goggles here, though maybe sunglasses.

  • The craze is spreading, this is a Polar Bear Swim International in Northeastern China.

  • Gear for cutting AND frying of the onions?

    It is true, just read cambridgetimes.ca:

    When she turned around to talk to me she burst out laughing. I faked ignorance as to the reason for her laughter and simply asked what was so funny?

    Pat mentioned how I looked like a goof with the goggles on. I simply laughed back and let her know it was a smart idea, seeing as how my eyes were not burning.

    Super recyclable advice for swimmers, only you might want to use a fairly new set of clear glasses when handling the knife, rather than the worn out I-see-no-sharks pair with sun protection that you’ve been using at the beach.